Book Club #1: Utopia for Realists

The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones. 

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)

The rise of Trumpsism, enabled by conservative politicians and our political system, has birthed a new wave of anti-liberalism. Trumpites are united on platforms of hyper-nationalism, gun ownership, anti-immigration, and anti-abortion. In these times, it’s easy for the liberal to couch themselves in being anti-Trump and dole out attacks from a position of moral superiority. It’s difficult to communicate a picture of the future worth fighting for.  That utopia.

Far from the communist manifesto or socialist’s wet dream that some might label it, Rutger Bregman’s Utopia for Realists does not propose a revolution but a research-based evolution for 21st century society. A utopia to insert into the cultural zeitgeist, at a time when politicians advocate for tradition and stagnancy while abandoning ideals of the future. Bregman peddles “pie-in-the-sky” ideas of universal basic income, open borders, and the fifteen hour workweek. He challenges the inevitability of poverty, the epidemic of workaholism, and the nationalism that pushes our world towards isolation. 

Why does our society accept that the banker makes more than the teacher?  Nowadays we have all contented ourselves with this as the way of world. The smartest minds of a generation pursue careers with Google and Facebook; optimizing the ways to show you ads. These aren’t societal and economic inevitabilities; they’re structural. 

They’re malleable. 

Bregman, a historian, pulls from the past to fill his book with examples of societal reinvention stretching back centuries. He also presents the simple yet often characterized as radical path to get there. Do you want teachers and nurses to be paid more and stock brokers less? Put a larger tax on trading. That will send the brighter minds away from the “bullshit” jobs and more to the jobs that generate wealth instead of move it around. There are many more questions where that came from.

• How do we bridge the inequality gap?
• How do we deal with the threat of automation?
• How do we remedy rising unemployment?

Utopia for Realists is a rebuke of the status quo and a lens with which to see an ideal future. The way Bregman combines historical retrospection and well-researched proposals with his charming wit, makes this book a must-read; a utopia to unite under for a generation dissatisfied with the one we’ve been given.

Thank you for reading my post. I hope you’ll check out the book.

“By the standard of the GDP,” says the writer Jonathan Rowe, “the worst families in America are those that actually function as families–that cook their own meals, take walks after dinner and talk together instead of just farming the kids out to the commercial culture.”

Bregman, Rutger. Utopia for Realists (p. 106). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

Maybe this is also a clue as to why the innovations of the past thirty years–a time of spiraling inequality–haven’t quite lived up to our expectations. “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters,” mocks Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley’s self-described resident intellectual. If the post-war era gave us fabulous inventions like the washing machine, the refrigerator, the space shuttle, and the pill, lately it’s been slightly improved iterations of the same phone we bought a couple years ago.

Bregman, Rutger. Utopia for Realists (pp. 166-167). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

In 2030, there will likely be a high demand for savvy accountants untroubled by a conscience. If current trends hold, countries like Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland will become even bigger tax havens, enabling multinationals to dodge taxes even more effectively, leaving developing countries with an even shorter end of the stick. If the aim of education is to roll with these kinds of trends rather than upend them, then egotism is set to be the quintessential twenty-first-century skill. Not because the law or the market or technology demand it, but solely because that, apparently, is how we prefer to earn our money.

Bregman, Rutger. Utopia for Realists (p. 171). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

For us today, it is still difficult to imagine a future society in which paid labor is not the be-all and end-all of our existence. But the inability to imagine a world in which things are different is evidence only of a poor imagination, not of the impossibility of change.

Bregman, Rutger. Utopia for Realists (pp. 198-199). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

There is a stubborn misconception that the job market is like a game of musical chairs. It’s not. Productive women, seniors, or immigrants won’t displace men, young adults, or hardworking citizens from their jobs. In fact, they create more employment opportunities. A bigger workforce means more consumption, more demand, more jobs. If we insist on comparing the job market to musical chairs, then it’s a version where new party animals keep showing up with more chairs.

Bregman, Rutger. Utopia for Realists (p. 225). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

But first, the underdog socialists will have to stop wallowing in their moral superiority and outdated ideas. Everyone who reckons themselves progressive should be a beacon of not just energy but ideas, not only indignation but hope, and equal parts ethics and hard sell. Ultimately, what the underdog socialist lacks is the most vital ingredient for political change: the conviction that there truly is a better way. That utopia really is within reach.

Bregman, Rutger. Utopia for Realists (p. 261). Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.